Day 28 – Nickel

Symbol – Ni

Atomic weight – 58.6934

Ionization energy – 7.6398eV

Solution – One Stormy night

Chemist – @jus_kenny

Nickel

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Fact:

1) Baami means my father.

2) Oni: – Name given to a baby that cries endlessly, day and night, after birth.

3) Taiwo: – Name given to the first one of a twin.

4) Kehinde: – Name given to the second twin.

5) Dada: – A baby with curly hair.

6) Iya ile: – Meaning the house mother, always the first wife.

6) Iyalode: – Meaning mother of women – A title given to the king’s first wife.

7) Kabiyesi: – King.

 

I have called Kabiyesi Baba for as long as I can remember. Baba is ancient. Baba is my father’s father. Baba hates me but his hate is only a fraction of how much someone else despises me; Iya ile or Sumbo as others call her.

 

Baba screamed at me and shouted for Baami to get the simpleton out of his sight. The foremost of men I heard that from was Baba. I admit, I am not too bright. His words, I could not understand, but his intent struck me harder than the fabled spear of Alawada would. I can read the mood in the area just as well Baba Bamtefa could divine Ifa’s messages from the white cowries. Although, I could not understand then how my questions caused some discomfort. I knew not to ask again when I saw mother’s eyes mist up. What shut me up though was the joy I could feel radiating from the corner of the hut where Iya ile, my father’s elder wife, sat. The cruelness of her happiness frightened me and I reconfirmed that something was wrong. Father did not bother explaining. He walked up to me and scooped me into his brawny arms.

 

I wondered then about the magnanimous display of emotion, as my father was not given to displaying much emotion. He seemed overtly protective and in front of Baba’s eyes too. I could understand then that he held me as much as I held him but I could not understand why. That he had to trek quite a distance through the rain did not seem to bother him. He carried me the extensive distance to my separate hut and set me down me within. He did not speak a word until he was to go.

 

He said to me, “Your brother is…” He stopped there, tethering on the edge. Then he said, “Kehinde, stay inside here. There should be a storm tonight.” He turned and left me in the semi dark space with only the dim sunlight from the storm outside filtering in through the white wrapper at my door. I did not want to stay in the hut; I had an undying need to know what was going on. I tried to stand but fire hot as the sun flared in my legs. I was born with cursed frail legs that would only support walking for short periods and this was not one of them. I was known in most places as crippled despite that not being entirely true.

 

Still, I was determined to find out and I had other methods; I was not a dada for nothing. On my mat, I stared at the roof of my thatched hut and time flickered by before my eyes. I focused; I called to one who had been with me as long as I can remember. I called till tears streamed down my face and when I believed my effort a failure, she came. The ghost of my long dead twin sister came.

 

Nude as the day I was born, she stood before me. She was unclothed, unconcealed right from her luxurious dark hair that moved to a breeze of its own down to her budding breasts and lower yet to her strong African thighs and beautiful feet.

She asked, as always. “Are you ready to join me? Are you ready now?” I shook my head vigorously as shivers ran down my spine.

“No, not today. There is too much wonder in the world to leave now.” I said.

“Are you sure? I really want my twin back. It’ll be fun with me. Come, please.”

“I’ll stay a lot longer. It’s quite fun here too.”

 

She smirked. She looked exactly as I saw myself when I looked into the bath water every morning. Although, with slight differences. Unlike me, she would not have been a dada though. She was a bit fatter than I was but otherwise, we were identical right down to our birthmarks. I thought, “They must really feed ghosts well.”

 

I recall seeing her as a baby. It was an eerie paler version of me staring down at myself with infant eyes as large as mine. I had known her forever. She was my carbon copy or rather; I was hers, since she came out of the womb first albeit that she came out lifeless.

I spoke to her, I said.  “Taiwo, something has happened. I must know what it is.”

She was silent for a while.  “Kehinde, it is none of your concern. Don’t poke your nose there, things won’t end well.”

 

I paused at the rebuke. She had never denied me anything. Despair clutched at me. I knew then that the news must be woeful.

“Taiwo, you too? You too?” I turned over and raised my wrapper above my head. It didn’t take long for me to find to the depths of sleep. I did not notice my legs upon a wall of my hut but I felt them there. There, in the depths of nightmare, I dreamt something evil. I woke screaming into a screeching African thunderstorm.

 

The first thing I noticed was that I could walk now. I put my legs to good use as I began the trek from my isolated hut to my mother’s hut. Baba, being king had amassed a fortune in his life. My father, not to be outdone had accumulated a copious share too. In their lifetimes they had collected quite a stretch of land. Being the eyesore of the family, I got a disconnected hut, far away from contact with outsiders and my family. I believe Baba was just hoping I would die off. I walked till my legs began to throb and then even after, in pain. Taiwo appeared before me then.

“Stop. Stop. Go back. Look at the weather. Go back, don’t stick your head here Kehinde.” She pleaded with me but to no avail. I was almost completely oblivious to her presence. I just put one foot in front of the other till I arrived at mothers.

 

Mother was not within. Tired, I virtually crawled into her quarters and then to the bundle of clothes that should have been Oni. As I approached the bundle I noticed something, Oni was silent and when I got to the body beneath the clothes it was cold as the raindrops outside. My nightmare was real after all. I had not been dreaming but dream walking.

 

I put my fingers to his teeny neck where he had been choked to death. She had no children of hers but two girls. Baami was the only heir to the throne and was set to be king after Baba. Oni, my father’s first male child, was a threat to her future ambition as Iyalode, the queen of women. My mind did not understand all this but I grasped the concept that iya ile murdered him. It made sense, she had been a brooding darkness right from the day he was born. Or rather, she had been more brooding and darker than before.

 

I crawled to his corpse and cried. I wept as memories of my time with the boy flooded my being. Such a tragedy, so young and innocent. It was not his time and being born a dada and a twin I had abilities that made me able to do something about it. He was barely dead a few hours and therefore still redeemable. I had tried this before with a drowned bird I found outside my hut. Now, I tried again. My twin appeared again and pleaded with me not to try. I ignored her. This was something I had to do. She implored me to stop even as I cradled Oni to my nonexistent bosom and I began to sing. I sang those songs I had sung to him, over and over again. I sang till my voice grew hoarse and my body trembled. I dipped into my pool of power and pulled for my brother. I pulled till I could pull no more. I shared my life and essence with him.

 

Oni shivered from the cold of my drenched clothes and I heard a feeble sob. I held him tightly and dozed off there for a bit. I awoke to feel his tiny heart beating and to see his infant chest rising. I smiled triumphantly.

 

I tried for getting up. My legs failed me and I panicked. I had to leave the vicinity. A baby had died, a baby had been revitalized. I should not be here when anyone came back. I understood that concept too well and I knew to make myself scarce lest someone see me. Terror flooded my brain as I tried again but they worked this time and I got up on shaky legs. My legs wobbling madly, I walked out of the hut into the stormy night.

 

A cry of “Who’s there?” almost sent urine gushing down my wrapper. In fear, I burst into a mad sprint. Biting my lower lip, against the pain, I ran. Perhaps someone had heard the cries of the baby. Perhaps it was my mother or just someone. I did not need to know. More importantly, they did not need to know me. I knew the villagers deep fear of magic and I doubled my pace fortifying against recognition.

 

The sky was dark and I could not see where I was going. Bumbling back to my hut, I felt more tired than I had ever been, tired and in torturous pain. I ran still, I could not stop running but I was slowing down. It took me a while to realize I was lost. I could feel the heat in my chest, and it fractured out in numerous directions. My body was fire in the cold rain. At first, I was beyond pain, I was beyond suffering and then suddenly, my legs ceased working and I crashed to the floor. Then, I knew I was within Esu’s grip. I was lost. Pain burst out from ever fraction of my body; Incomprehensible agony. Tears flowed freely down out of my eyes confluencing with the raindrops as I fell to the mud and laid there. I knew a good herb that could cure my pain but I was lost now. Rain battered my body, thunder rumbled painfully to my ears and I began to feel cold. It was dark and I was lost. As I sank into despair, lightning flashed. It illuminated my surroundings and I realized two things. I was not far from my hut and the herb I sought for was miraculously within reach. Inch by excruciating inch I stretched out my left hand to the plant. As I got it I made to get up with my other hand but it slipped in the mud and I smashed my chin down upon a stone. Pain radiated out from the point of impact. Pain wracked my body into convulsions. I blacked out.

 

As I come to, I see Taiwo’s ghostly form before me, weeping. Her ghost tears neither drip nor drop but they flow down her face freely and into nonexistence. I am in tortured misery. She stretches out a hand towards me and this time I accept it. “Take me, I’m ready now”, I beg in whispered words.

She smiles. “Kehinde, in our next life, how would you like to torture iya ile as Abiku?”

I laugh. I would like that.

There laid Kehinde, she died with an herb in her hand.

“Aje ke lana, omo ku leni. Tani o mo pe aje to ke lana lo pa omo je.”

Translation  (A witch cried yesterday, a child died today. Who doesn’t know that it’s the witch that cried yesterday that killed the child?)        — Yoruba Proverb.